We walked down the main street of town and, I don't know about her mouth, but mine was still wimpering about its lost tastebuds from overheated coffee. I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked at her with the right side of my face. "Tell me some more about these dreams. Any recurring?"

"Mm hmm."

"Well? Do I get anything more than that?"

"I have some of them three or four times a week."

"Are there any ones you haven't told me about?"

"There was this one a couple of nights ago with...sand worms or something."

"What did these sand worms do to you?"

"Well...they, uh..."

"Stop," she was standing still a couple of paces behind me staring at me with the therapists' all-knowing half smile. "Let's go somewhere a little more comfortable."

I cocked my head slightly to one side, but followed her. Jess led me to the deserted center of Central Park where everyone was their own center of attention.

Ending up under a gigantic full tree, she motioned towards the grass, "sit, unless you've become afraid of grass, suddenly."

Not being able to think of anything to reply, I sat down cross-legged on the cool grass. The blonde stared momentarily down at me and smiled before sitting against the tree. Just like a stereotyped psychiatrist, she pulled out a small, blue, memo book and a pen. "How'd you sleep last night, Gee?"

"Last night? I had just had a whole pot of coffee so it took me awhile, but I fell asleep. I didn't have any nightmares, though."

She stared at me like she knew something she wouldn't tell me and scribbled it on the page. "Know what a Freudian slip is?"

It sounded somewhat familiar, yet, I couldn't place it, "no."

"Mmm. So when was your last nightmare?"

Lying down away from her, I picked a lone flower. "Three nights ago, or something."

"Did you wake up screaming or sweating?"

The flower stopped in between my fingers and the image of Mikey hovering over me at two in the morning flashed through my head. It's cold at two in the morning when you've kicked all the blankets away...I whispered the answer, "yes."

My ears picked up the scribbles on the recycled paper. "Did it scare you, Gerard?"

I couldn't see my hands crushing the flower because I was staring so intently at...something, maybe the couple swallowing each others' tonsils. "Gerard?"

My neck twitched with the twitch of my name. "Yeah, yeah it did."

"Tell me about it."

All my focus fell to the damp grass below me that my fingers stroked gently. "It was weird. The band, my band, was playing a show in Egypt or some desert in Africa. The Sahara, I think. We were getting ready and they asked me to go get them some water because there was no water in the building, or something. So I left and asked this guy where I could get some water and he said the only place to get water was in some sacred river. So I left the town and got to the river but realized that I forgot a jug so I turned around to go back and get one when a big..."

"It can't hurt you."

"Ok, a big sand worm thing came out of the ground, it was gross. It was bleeding puss and it had scars all over it and there were just two holes for eyes and it had razor sharp teeth..."

I looked back to see her smiling bemusedly, "music industry's a bitch, isn't it?"

A chuckle forced its way out. "Just the people are. Anyway...

It tried to get me and I tried to run but it was too big. It wrapped its tail around my neck so it could pick me up. Of course, it ended up dropping me."

"Did you hit the ground?"

"...No. I woke up before I could."

Below me lay a bald spot of grass and a vicious pile beside me. Sitting up, I casually brushed the dead grass to the bald spot and faced her. "What do you think?"

She threw me a smile and a wink, "I'm good, sugar."
---
Jess flipped her hair from her face and looked up at the building above her, my apartment building. "I suppose this is your stop, Way."

"Suppose so."

"I'll see you next week, then."

"Actually I got to cancel that appointment. We're heading out on tour next week."

"Oh, that's too bad. The week after then?"

"Yeah..."

She held up her graceful hand and turned to leave when I stopped her and leaned in close so no strangers could hear me. "D-Do you really think I should be without you? I mean do you think I'll be ok by myself?"

"That doesn't matter, hon. Do you think you'll be ok? Do you really want to hold up a tour because you're insane?"